News and Recent Modifications

This page chronicles the history of the Sorabji Resource Site and lists the most substantial modifications. Minor changes and corrections are not mentioned because the site is constantly updated and minor mistakes fixed. New pages and substantial updates, on the other hand, will be documented.

2013

2013-04-29: Addition of a column for the year of publication of the latest edition in the List of KSS Numbers and Years of Publication.

2013-01-21: Addition (between square brackets after the heading) of the most used form (in normal order) of the names of the people mentioned in Biographical Notes to facilitate Internet searches using quotation marks.

2012

2012-11-12: Addition of a page entitled Travels and Holidays.

2012-10-09: Addition of a page entitled Structure of the Triple Fugue of the Variazioni e fuga triplice sopra “Dies irae”.

2012-04-18: Renaming of a page to Linguistic and Musical Problems in Titles of Works and substantial revision of the introductory paragraphs as well as addition of two titles to reflect the coverage of musical problems.

2012-04-18: Modifications to the titles of four works:

Symphony II for Piano, Large Orchestra, Organ, Final Chorus, and Six Solo Voices (1930-31; 333 pp.), which has remained a work for piano solo, becomes Symphony no. 0 for Piano Solo (1930-31; 333 pp.).
A distinction is now made between the Symphonic Variations for Piano (1935-37; 484 pp.), which title designates the original work for piano solo, and the Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra (1935-37, 1953-56; 540 pp.), which title corresponds to the second version with orchestra, by dropping the “[and Orchestra]” previously used in the first version’s title.
Symphony [no. 3], “Jāmī”, for Large Orchestra, Wordless Chorus, and Baritone Solo (1942-51; 824 pp.), following a thorough revision of the pagination by Alistair Hinton and myself, consists of 826 rather than 824 pages. It will be henceforth known as “[no. 2]” rather than as “[no. 3]” now that the title Symphony II no longers exists among the “orchestral” works. The new title is thus Symphony [no. 2], “Jāmī”, for Large Orchestra, Wordless Chorus, and Baritone Solo (1942-51; 826 pp.).
A minor (but logical) linguistic change is that “divertirmi” is now used instead of “divertirsi”, hence the title Concerto da suonare da me solo e senza orchestra, per divertirmi (1946; 70 pp.).

2012-03-28: Addition of several entries (not of recent items) to the page Discoveries and Acquisitions and Sales of Manuscripts.

2012-03-21: Addition of several entries to the page Reproductions of Manuscripts in Printed Sources and Library Catalogues.

2012-03-19: Addition of a page entitled Literary Tastes, offering an extensive list of close to 190 books read by Sorabji during the years 1930 and 1953 (with name of author, years of birth and death, subject, source, and reference).

2012-01-20: Reordering of the menu entries and insertion of separators (from two to six) to achieve clearer grouping and make it easier for the eye to find a topic. This will be especially useful in the substantial “Sources” section.

2012-01-20: Addition of a page entitled Related Works by Other Composers, listing earlier or later settings by other composers of texts used by Sorabji in his songs or, in the case of works based on pre-existent material, transcriptions or uses of the same works.

2011

2011-11-08: Addition of a substantial entry about Hugh MacDiarmid on page Archival Audio and Video Recordings.

2011-08-31: Addition of a page entitled Tables of Contents of the Published Editions, providing initial page numbers of movements or sections for all the published editions of the sectional works as a complement to similar data offered for the manuscripts in Paul Rapoport’s catalogue of works in SCC, 109-74.

2011-07-04: Addition of a page entitled Interest in Occultism, Religion, Numerology, and Eroticism.

2011-05-13: Links to online versions of texts that have inspired Sorabji added to the page Sources > Musical and Literary Sources.

2011-04-20: Addition of annotations providing data such as publication years, founders, editors, editorial stance, etc. for most periodicals in which Sorabji published articles and open letters to the page Writings > Musical and Non-Musical Journals.

2011-04-18: Addition of a page entitled Sources > List of KSS Numbers giving the correspondence between the KSS numbers assigned to Sorabji’s works by the Sorabji Archive and the titles used on the Sorabji Resource Site.

2011-04-14: Entry for Symphonia brevis for Piano (1973; 120 pp.) removed from page Performances > Works Performed but not Recorded and added to page Performances > Track Timings of the Altarus and Continuum Recordings following the release of the Altarus AIR-CD-9064(2) by Donna Amato.

2011-03-31: Years of birth and death in the page People > Poets Set to Music laid out in two columns rather than one to enable sorting on each of the dates and make it possible to see easily which writers are still under copyright. Names of translators added.

2011-03-18: Reformatting by means of bullets entries with multiple sources on the page Sources > Musical and Literary Sources to make reading easier.

2011-03-18: Change of layout in the page Works > Unperformed Works by the addition of a middle column (Edition) making it possible, by sorting, to group the works for which a printed edition is available.

2011-03-10: Addition of several links to pictures available from Wikipedia Commons and from the National Portrait Gallery (London) to the page People > References to Photographs of People and Places Connected with Sorabji.

2011-03-07: Substantial modification to the entry for Alvin Langdon Coburn, providing a link to a reconstruction of his book Musicians of Mark.

2010

2010-08-25: Addition of a substantial section entitled “1992: Use of the Latin Language in Paul Rapoport’s Sorabji: A Critical Celebration” to the page Miscellaneous > Humour, Popular Culture, Trivia, Etc.

2010-08-19: Addition of a page entitled Works Performed but not Recorded.

2010-08-18: Addition of sections entitled “Age of Sorabji’s Parents at the Time of Their Marriage (18 February 1892)” and “Age at Significant Steps of His Life” to the page Biography > Sundry Facts about Dates.

2010-08-18: Google has finished indexing the Sorabji Resource Site.

2010-08-11: Marc-André Roberge announces on the Sorabji Forum and on the Yahoo! Sorabji Group the launch of the Sorabji Resource Site in time for the 118th anniversary of Sorabji’s birth on 14 August.

2009

2009-08-31: At the end of his sabbatical year, Marc-André Roberge considers that his Sorabji Resource Site, but for a few minor details, is complete, but decides to wait the appropriate moment to make it public.

2009-08-14: On the 117th anniversary of Sorabji’s birth, Marc-André Roberge allows Alistair Hinton to navigate, confidentially, on the sea of data about the composer’s life and works that the Sorabji Resource Site represents. He will thus have been the first person to have access to the site and comment on it. His suggestions for corrections and improvements have been incorporated.

2008

2008-04-07: Marc-André Roberge begins coding the first page of the Sorabji Resource Site.

2008-03-17: Marc-André Roberge begins working on a table of contents (or list of topics to be included).

2007

2007-11-06: The Dean of the Faculty of Music at Laval University (Québec) approves Marc-André Roberge’s project for a sabbatical year consisting, among others, in the creation of a research website on Sorabji.